Needless to say, the news didn’t bode well for the iPhone users and is likely to attract a series of lawsuits. Los Angeles residents, Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas have already filed a lawsuit with the U.S District Court for the Central District of California. The lawsuit accuses Apple of slowing down their older iPhone models when the new ones came out. The lawsuit further details how both the respondents own both the iPhone 7 and the earlier iPhone models as well. They further allege that everytime Apple releases a new iPhone the older one slows down. Both of them also pressed on the fact that they bring users were not asked for consent to have their devices slowed down. In other words, both the users were not able to choose “whether they preferred to have their iPhones slower than normal.” Since it is a Californa and Nationwide class action certificate, the lawsuit will cover everyone owning any older iPhone other than the iPhone 8. Apple addressed the issue yesterday and presented the throttling as a power management feature, one that would eventually prolong the life of the iPhone and its battery. Apparently, Apple had implemented the features back in iOS 10.2.1. Apple is trying to explain that some of the older iPhone models are not able to supply enough battery juice when the processor hits the peak and this will eventually lead to a shutdown. The company has thus underclocked the processors in order to combat this shutdown issue and thus result in a more judicial use of battery power. Apple has also squashed the theory that the throttling is done to push the sales of newer iPhone models and instead claim that it was to accommodate the effect of degrading lithium-ion batteries. Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.” That being said, it would have helped if Apple had revealed the same earlier before the issue broke out. If this is indeed a power management feature Apple should have also considered asking users before activating it. I personally feel that Apple owes its users a more transparent explanation and should also warn users of degrading batteries and throttled CPUs henceforth.
